I just finished watching yesterday’s House Intelligence Committee hearing with FBI Director James Comey and NSA Director Admiral Mike Rogers. I came away from it with the opinion that the Democrats on the committee are only interested in advancing a political agenda, as evidenced by the many, many statements they made rather than actually asking questions of the two subjects. Those statements were all based on information taken from the media, which is ironic because Director Comey made clear that media accounts regarding classified information are almost without exception inaccurate. (He gave them an accuracy of maybe ten percent.) He also said that the “sources” used by the media are often some distance removed from the actual information and that the information they provide members of the media is usually inaccurate. Yet, even after he made this statement, the Democrats on the committee continued to read their obviously pre-written statements that were largely based on media accounts. Such a travesty!

The purpose of the hearings was, at least ostensibly, to hear from the two agency directors regarding the ongoing investigation into Russian “meddling” in the 2016 presidential election. The Director of the CIA, Mike Pompeo, was not there, probably because he just took over the agency. At the time of the alleged “meddling,” the CIA director was John Brennan, an Obama appointee who left office on January 20. Congressman Trey Gowdy, a former Federal prosecutor, insinuated that Brennan may have been responsible for some of the highly illegal leaks of information that have appeared in the media since President Trump’s election, leaks that Director Comey made clear are criminal and that the leakers should be found and prosecuted. The most serious is the leaking of information pertaining to Lt. General Mike Flynn, the short-lived Director of Intelligence in the Trump Administration. (Gowdy may have even been insinuating that Obama himself is the leaker. Someone in his administration authorized the “unmasking” of the general after his voice was found on recordings of the Russian ambassador.)

As the hearings proceeded, it became obvious that the object of Democrats was to attempt to influence Director Comey to investigate/prosecute various members of the Trump circle, particularly General Flynn. Congresswoman Terri Sewell, a black woman from Alabama, was the attack dog. She kept harping on General Flynn, insinuating that he is a criminal, in spite of Director Comey’s continual refusal to answer her questions. Comey had made it clear at the beginning of the hearing that he was not going to answer any questions related to individuals or information that had appeared in the media. (It has recently come to light that General Flynn’s company was paid $500,000 for consulting work for a Dutch company that is suspected of “having ties” to Turkey.) Sewell was obviously trying to get Comey to have Flynn charged for not registering as a foreign agent (which he did on March 8.) GOP Congressman Trey Gowdy, insinuated that the Obama White House leaked information about General Flynn that had been obtained illegally by the NSA. Remember that General Flynn is alleged to have engaged in a number of conversations with the Russian ambassador, information that could have only been obtained by surveillance, which is illegal since General Flynn is an American citizen and surveillance requires a court order.

When it comes to the actual Russian “interference” in the election, very little was actually said about it. At the beginning of the hearing, Congressman Nunes solicited statements from both directors that there is no evidence that the Russians changed the vote in any of the states that President Trump won by a narrow margin. Both Director Comey and Admiral Rogers stated that there is no evidence of any Russian interference in the actual election in those states. The two directors referred to the findings of the three intelligence agencies – CIA, FBI and NSA – that the Russians meddled in the election primarily by spreading “propaganda” on the Russian government-owned television station RT and it’s associated web site designed to hurt Mrs. Clinton. (There was no mention of the American propaganda stations – ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN and MSNBC. However, as stated previously, Director Comey stated that their stories are highly inaccurate.) In reality, the information I’ve seen on RT was no different than accounts I have seen on other outlets dating back to the 1990s. Both Director Comey and Admiral Rogers referred to Russia as an “adversary” of the United States, but neither actually stated why they considered the two countries to be adversaries. (Adversary is not the same as an enemy – adversary is actually synonymous with opponent, as in a contest.)

Are Russia and the United States actually in competition with one another? If so, just how? Back when the Soviet Union was still in power, there was the matter of ideology as the Soviet Union was the leading advocate of the spread of communism. Those days are over, however. The Soviet Union collapsed in 1991 and since then Russia and the United States have had a different kind of relationship. Russia is not trying to manipulate ideology in the West; in fact, Russia is now capitalist even if the country is run, at least allegedly, by an oligarchy (another word that is often thrown about without consideration – some allege that the United States is an oligarchy, or was before Donald Trump became president. Since then, it’s often called fascist – by people who are actually Marxist themselves.) The truth is that the United States has nothing Russia wants. Yes, Russia now owns a company that owns a uranium mine in the US but it also has large uranium reserves of its own, more than twice as much as the United States. It’s the same with oil – Russian oil reserves are more than double those of the United States. The fear and hatred of Russia characteristic of so many Americans, particularly those in government, is actually a holdover from the Cold War combined with animosity over Russia’s occupation of Crimea and influence in Ukraine, both of which have strong connections to Russia dating back for centuries. It’s actually Europe that fears Russia, and that fear has spread into elements in the United States.

Director Comey stated something that has been made public in the past, that the FBI never had access to the Democratic National Committee’s computer servers. The claim that they were hacked by “the Russians” (the hackers were actually not from the Russian government, but are alleged to have been working for it) is based on information provided by a third party internet security company contracted by the DNC. He alleged that this is not abnormal, but that the FBI often depends on information from third party internet security companies when investigating cyber crimes.

Personally, I doubt that the hearings and the House (and FBI) investigations will accomplish anything. One writer has referred to the hearing as a “nothing burger.” I tend to agree.

As anyone who’s been paying the slightest attention to the media lately know, Judge Roy S, Moore, the controversial, devout Christian (Baptist) Alabama judge running as the Republican nominee for the Senate seat vacated by Attorney General Jeff Sessions has been “accused” of “sexual misconduct” (whatever that is) by a number of women in their 50s and 60s. They claim that when they were teenagers and in their early twenties, Judge Moore, who was not a judge back then, did something sexual to them. In most of the claims, all the judge did was take them out on dates or ask them out, with the impropriety being that Moore was considerably older than they, by as much as eighteen years in one alleged case. Now, with one possible exception, the difference in ages was not illegal and, in fact, by historical standards, wasn’t even unusual. Since the “allegations” came out in an article published in the Washington Post a few days after the D.C. paper came out condemning Judge Moore as “unfit for office” (they said the same thing about Donald Trump) numerous commentators have referred to Moore as a “much older” man, when, in fact, at the time of the allegations, he was actually a young man in his very early thirties and the women were in their teens and twenties. The original “accusations,” which really aren’t accusations of anything, were that three women went out on dates with Moore while another said that he had asked her out but she declined because her mother wouldn’t let her go. The first woman claimed that she went with Moore to “his house” twice and that the second time they engaged in what can only be classified as “petting,” and that at the time, she was possibly underage. (I say possibly because she alleges that she was fourteen at the time and the age of consent in Alabama today is 16. No one seems to know what it was in 1977, when she claims she went with Moore.) A fifth accuser went to notorious Democratic Party activist Gloria Allred to claim that Moore assaulted her in his car. Another jumped on the bandwagon and made no allegation other than that she claims Moore pestered her for dates and that she “got him banned from the mall” where she worked – she was in her twenties. Since then, another woman, one of Roy Moore’s clients, claims he “grabbed my butt.”

Before we get into this, bear in mind that these claims came out a month before the Alabama special election in which Judge Moore is the Republican candidate. That alone makes the claims extremely suspicious. The judge has held office in Alabama for 40 years and has made untold numbers of political enemies, not only in Alabama, but throughout the nation and in the media, because of his strong stands on legal issues. His national notoriety dates back to when he was sued by the ACLU for displaying a wooden placard of the Ten Commandments in his courtroom, but his local notoriety in Etowah County, Alabama where he grew up started soon after he began practicing law when he spoke out against the way local attorneys and judges were handling the courts. Animosity toward him increased when he ran for circuit judge and made accusations against the attorneys and the judges. Claims were made against him to the state bar association. His name became well known in the county and there was stiff opposition to him. It is also during this period that the claims made by the women are supposed to have occurred. Furthermore, the claims all date back to the late 1970s and very early 1980s, with one exception, the one made by his later client, which dates to the 1990s.

The earliest – in terms of when the incident is supposed to have occurred – was made by one Beverly Young Nelson, who claims that Moore offered her a ride home from the restaurant where she worked, sometime after December 1977, then assaulted her in his car. Nelson’s claim is suspect because she was not one of the women interviewed by the Washington Post reporters; instead, she engaged notorious lawyer and Democratic Party activist Gloria Allred to represent her and made her claim in a dramatic press conference in New York City, obviously for political purposes. Now, Nelson and Moore are residents of Alabama, the allegations are set in Alabama, and any court action would have to be filed there, which raises the question of whether Allred is even licensed to practice law there. (In fact, complaints against Allred have been made in California and she is under investigation by the California Bar.) There are holes in Nelson’s story. For one thing, she claims Moore locked the car doors so she couldn’t get out. Unless his vehicle had electric locks, which is doubtful in early 1978, he would have had to reach across in front of her or she would have had to raise up so he could reach behind her to lock the door. (Nelson says his car was a 2-door. She also says she thinks it was “older” which makes it unlikely to have had electric locks.) Furthermore, the purpose of door locks is to lock the doors so they can’t be opened FROM THE OUTSIDE! Most car doors are unlocked from the inside simply by pulling the handle. There is also the question of why she let Moore drive her home. She says she was waiting for her boyfriend to come and pick her up, but he was running late. Why didn’t she want to wait a few minutes? She says he showed up a few minutes after the alleged assault. She claims she had bruises and her clothes would have undoubtedly been disheveled but her boyfriend seems not to have noticed. Members of her own family have said the story is made up. Her stepson says she is not an honest woman and is out for money. A former boyfriend who knew her then has told the media he doesn’t believe her. A woman who worked at the barbecue joint Nelson claims she worked at says that she worked there three years from 1977-80 and never saw Roy Moore in the place – Nelson claimed he was a regular who ate there every night and always sat in the same chair. (Now, bear in mind that Moore lived in the country some 25 miles or so by road from Gadsden. It’s extremely unlikely he would have been in the restaurant at the time Nelson claims the assault occurred.) Nelson claims that Moore pulled her head toward his crotch. She also says he was trying to get her shirt off while he was trying to get her to his crotch, but then says he let her go. Now, bear in mind that none of the other “accusers” mention any kind of assault or threats. In fact, except for Leigh Corfman, none of the women interviewed by the Washington Post mention any kind of sexual contact other than kissing at all. Nelson claims she never told anyone because she was afraid Moore would do something to hurt her or her family. She says she didn’t tell her boyfriend because he had a violent temper and she was afraid he would do something. Regardless, there is no way Nelson’s allegations can ever be proven. They are alleged to have occurred 39 years ago and the statute of limitations have long since expired.

Leigh Corfman alleges that she went out with Roy Moore twice when she was fourteen years of age. She claims that she met Moore in 1979 in the Gadsden County courthouse when she went there with her mother, who had filed suit to give up custody because the girl had behavior problems (although Corfman doesn’t mention that in her account.) She claims that she and her mother were waiting to go into the courtroom when Moore came over and offered to stay with her outside the courtroom. Now, this doesn’t make sense (although her mother has corroborated the story.) Corfman was fourteen years old, an adolescent, not a child. Why would a 14-year old need someone to wait with them in the foyer of a courthouse? She claims that she gave Moore her telephone number and asked him to call her. She claims that she’d slip out of the house and meet him on a street corner near her house. She says that she went out with Moore at least twice, and that he took her to “his house” on both occasions. Now, at that time – and for years afterward – Moore was living in a mobile home, a trailer, he had purchased while he was in the Army on 16 acres of land in the Gallant community west of Gadsden, where Corfman was living with her mother. In 1979, he was in the process of adding-on to the trailer to make it into a house but it wasn’t until 1982 that it resembled a house. In fact, when he and his wife first married in 1985 she had to cook in an electric skillet in the washroom because he hadn’t built a kitchen (and didn’t for at least a year after their marriage.) Corfman remembers that the “house” was up a gravel road but makes no mention of him living in a trailer.

Bear in mind that Moore’s trailer was at least 25 miles from Gadsden where Corfman lived, one way. He would have had to drive around 50 miles, at least, to take her to his house then take her home. It would have taken them at least half an hour to get from her house to his and another half hour to get back, but she makes no mention of this in her accounts. For her to have gone to Moore’s trailer, she would have had to have been gone from home a minimum of an hour, not counting the time she spent there. Where the hell was her mother? Her mother had just gone to court to give custody to her father because she couldn’t handle her. Wouldn’t she have been curious, at least, to know where her daughter had been? If she wasn’t home, why did Corfman go somewhere else to meet Moore? She claims that the first time they went there, they did some kissing but then says that the second time, he put his hand on her breast – over her bra. She also says he went in the bedroom and took off his clothes then came out in his underwear. This doesn’t make sense. Why would a man leave a hot girl on the floor of his living room to go to his bedroom to take off his clothes? No, he would have either taken his pants and shirt (that’s all he took off) there in the living room where they were making out or would have taken her into the bedroom. In fact, a man would have removed the girl’s clothes first. Now, this sounds more like something a high school boy would do, not a 32-year old man! Or, from a Harlequin Romance.

There is a strong possibility that Corfman may have concocted a fantasy about Roy Moore after he talked to her and her mother at the courthouse. She said in her appearance on the Today Show that she read a lot of romance novels. Now, I’ve read a few over the years, although not recently. One of the topics of romance novels is of a young woman meeting an exciting older man and being swept off her feet while her bodice heaves. Corfman was a disturbed young teenager whose parents had been divorced for five years. She admits she lived in a fantasy world and that when she was going out with Roy Moore, she was experiencing a fantasy of being in the adult world. Now she says she was a child but she evidently considered herself an adult at the time. There is a very thin wall between fantasy and reality and our memories often concoct fantasies we later remember as real. For example, for years I believed a certain experience had happened to me while I was in the Air Force. I believed it and even wrote about it but then it occurred to me that what I was “remembering” was actually the image that came in my mind at the time one of my friends was telling about something had happened to him. I also sometimes have dreams about relationships I had with young women before my first marriage and between my marriages. I eventually realized that these women only exist in my dreams. They are not real. Leigh Corfman’s recollections of her relationship with Roy Moore may only exist in her imagination.

There is something important in the Corfman account – if her allegations are true, their actions were consensual. She says that on both occasions, when she became uncomfortable and told him to stop and take her home, he did. The only illegality was her age. She was younger than the age of consent as expressed in the Alabama Code of 1975 (the code still in force in Alabama.) However, she makes no insinuation that she had intercourse with Moore. Neither do any of the other women who have made the news. However, since Corfman was under the age of 16 and Moore was older than 19, he would have been guilty of sexual abuse in the second degree.

Corfman has some credibility issues for a number of reasons. First, she was a child of divorce, which causes problems for many children. (I know all about this – I had four children at the time of my divorce and it was very hard on them.) Corfman has admitted both to being involved with drugs – which affect the brain – and promiscuity. She was involved in a number of questionable activities as a teenager and as an adult and claims to have attempted suicide at age 16. Since her mother gave up custody to her father due to the girl’s disobedience, she was obviously already having problems before she met Moore. She is alleged to have made allegations against other prominent men – particularly pastors – and she may have actually been as old as seventeen at the time she claims to have been involved with Moore. She says she told people about the incident but her mother has said she didn’t tell her until ten years later, after Moore had become a circuit court judge. One of her friends claims Corfman told her she was going out with an older man and the woman says she warned her it wasn’t a good idea. Regardless of who she told, the fact remains that there is no case against Judge Moore – Corfman has allegations but that’s all, and the only place those allegations will be heard is in the media.

There are also problems with the time frame of Corfman’s claim. According to court records, her mother was in court to give up custody to her father because she had discipline problems. The court proceedings were on February 21, 1979, a Wednesday. The order stated that she was to be placed in the custody of her father, who lived in Ohatchee, a community some 15 miles south of Gadsden, on March 4, a Sunday. Corfman claimed that Moore called her at her mother’s and that she slipped out of the house and went to meet him on a street corner – which may have been more than a mile a from the house and on the other side of a major thoroughfare. She claims he took her to his house twice. There is only a 12-day window for Corfman’s proceedings with Moore to have occurred (actually 10, since she was at the courthouse on the first day and moved to her father’s house on the twelfth.) She did not mention that she left her mother’s home and moved in with her father. She say that when Moore called, she made excuses but never mentioned that she had moved, which would have been a logical reason for the relationship to have ended.

The third accuser is a woman named Tina Johnson who was 28 years old at the time of her allegation, which is supposed to have occurred sometime in the 1990s. She and her mother had hired Moore to represent them in her effort to relinquish custody of her 12-year old son (which means she was 16 when she had him) to her mother because she lacked the means to support him. She claims that as she and her mother were leaving his office, Moore grabbed one of her cheeks. Yet, she never told her mother and continued to use Moore in the case. I suspect that she just wanted to get on the #MeToo bandwagon.

None of the other “accusations” are actually accusations at all. Two are women who admit to going out on dates with Moore. All were in their teens but over the age of consent. One claims she met Moore when she was fourteen and that he asked her out two years later but she didn’t go because her mother wouldn’t let her. One, who was eighteen at the time, says that Moore took her to a pizza parlor and ordered a bottle of Matuese Rose, a popular Portuguese wine, even though she was under twenty-one. (She doesn’t seem to say that she drank any.) Then there is another, one Becky Gray, who apparently just wanted to get on the bandwagon. She was in her twenties when she claims she knew Moore, and working in a store in the Gadsden Mall. She claims that Moore asked her out several times and she complained to the store manager that he was bothering her. However, she makes no claim of sexual impropriety. She claims she “got Roy Moore banned from the mall” but the fact is, according to the mall manager, he was never banned from the mall at all. That he was banned from the mall is apparently a rumor started by mall workers who had seen him there then when he quit appearing – because he had left the area – they thought he had been banned. Bear in mind that this was during the time when Roy Moore was engaged in a bitter dispute with local attorneys and a campaign for county judge, which he ended up losing, and there was a lot of animosity against him. There can be no doubt that a lot of stories were being spread about him by his opponents (just as there are now.) Some Gadsden residents claim that Moore had a reputation for trying to pick up teenage girls at the mall, but no woman has come forward claiming he tried to pick her up except the one woman who worked in a store, and she was in her twenties. A former police officer, a woman, told a TV commentator that while there were rumors about Moore, no one ever made a complaint. She said it “was all rumor.” There is also the question of whether Moore was even going to the mall at all because at the time residents claim he was, he was engaged in building his house when he wasn’t at work as a prosecuting attorney. (This raises another issue – the kids no doubt knew that if they got in trouble, Moore would prosecute them.) Moore was living in a mobile home on sixteen acres of land he had purchased in Gallant, a small rural community some 15 miles west of Gadsden. Gallant is one of those places “you can’t get to from here,” By road, the distance appears to have been at least 25 miles just to Gadsden and the Gadsden Mall is south of town and even further from Moore’s home. Considering that he was busy building his house, it’s doubtful he’d have had time to spend at the mall.

There are some things about the current controversy that really upset me. Certain segments of the media and some politicians are branding Judge Moore as a “pedophile” and “child molester.” In fact, even if the stories about him were true, Moore would not be a pedophile. Pedophilia is sexual attraction to prepubescent children. None of the women who have made claims regarding Judge Moore were prepubescent. Even Leigh Corfman, the youngest, was older than fourteen and even if she was below the age of consent (to engage in sexual intercourse, which neither she or any of the other women have claimed occurred), she was still an adolescent and no longer a child. Pundits also refer to Moore as a “sexual predator” when, in fact, no sex is alleged to have occurred. Nelson claims Moore forced her head to his crotch but then says he “gave up” and let her go – and her account isn’t even believed by some of her own family members and friends. Critics also insinuate that the fact that Moore went out on dates with women still in their teens is somehow sordid. In fact, romantic relationships between older men and teenage women has been common throughout history. Texas Governor Sam Houston married Margaret Lea when she was 21 and he was 47; they had been romantically involved for 2 years before their marriage. Abraham Lincoln was nine years older than his wife Mary Todd. Mark Twain was ten years older than his wife Olivia. When my parents married in January 1943, my mother had just turned 19 and my father was a few weeks short of his thirtieth birthday. I have a photograph of my great-grandfather, a Methodist preacher, taken with his daughter on her wedding day – she was thirteen and entering a marriage that would last for more than half a century. I myself am almost twenty years older than my current wife – we’ve been married for seventeen years – and I was six years older than my first wife, to whom I was married for eighteen years. No, relationships between women and men many years older than they are is not at all uncommon. In fact, many girls are married in their early to mid teens, usually to men several years older than themselves.

Something also needs to be understood about the time frame of the allegations. The 1970s and 1980s were a turbulent and confusing time for young people. The so-called “Sexual Revolution” had started in the 1960s (or before) and was in full swing through the 1970s and into the 1980s. It was a permissive time, with sex as the focal point. Movies included sex scenes that wouldn’t have been thought of a generation before. Abortion became legal in 1973 and birth control was becoming common. Drug use had become rampant, with young people whose parents had thought beer was exciting smoking pot and taking other, more powerful, illicit drugs to get high. Leigh Corfman has admitted to having been a drug user – and promiscuous – as a teenager.

Roy Moore, on the other hand, had become a devout Christian at a young age then after graduating from high school had gone off to the US Military Academy at West Point, New York where he spent four years in a generally isolated, heavily disciplined environment. After graduation, he went to Germany for two years then straight to Vietnam, where the US was in the process of disengaging from a war that had become unpopular and where the remaining troops had become an undisciplined rabble. Although he had been an infantry officer, in Vietnam the young Captain Moore was put in command of a company of military police whose duties were to guard the stockade at Da Nang. Even though they were supposed to be in charge of disciplining miscreant soldiers, the men of Moore’s company were ill disciplined and resentful of him because he sought to restore the discipline he found lacking. His men resented him and he was fearful of being “fragged,” a practice that had become all too common in Vietnam. “Fragging” meant tossing a fragmentation grenade into the hooch of a hated officer or sergeant. One of Moore’s men fragged the company top sergeant but, fortunately, the man lived and recovered from his wounds. The culprit had announced that he was going to frag Moore, leading the captain to sleep outside of his hooch. There are rumors being spread about Judge Moore’s conduct as an Army officer. One claim is that he made his men salute, and thus violated a military precept about saluting when in the presence of the enemy. Well, Moore’s company wasn’t in the presence of the enemy. He was commander of a rear area MP company in charge of the stockade. Saluting is a military courtesy and, yes, soldiers, sailors and airmen saluted officers in rear areas such as Da Nang. How do I know this? Because I spent over four years of my life of which a good portion was in South Vietnam. After returning to an assignment at Fort Riley, Kansas, the young officer served out his military commitment then resigned his commission and returned to Alabama where he enrolled at the University of Alabama School of Law. Fresh out of the Army and a Vietnam veteran, Moore found himself among a crowd that had protested the war and hated the military, and the veterans who had served. His professors and some of his classmates ridiculed him. Nevertheless, he graduated and passed the bar, apparently on the first try, then returned to his home in Etowah County to practice law.

Just what Roy Moore’s relationships with women had been during his years at West Point and in the Army are unknown. He doesn’t discuss relationships with any women prior to his wife in his memoir. He did have female friends when he was in law school but whether or not he was close to any of them is unknown. He came back to the Gadsden area after having been away for twelve years. His female high school friends had most likely married or moved away, as is common in small towns and rural areas. He was thirty years old and it’s doubtful there were any single women around town his age so, naturally, his attention would have been directed towards younger women, some of whom were in their teens. Another Gadsden attorney believes he was behind in social development. However, it is a long stretch to say that he “preyed” on teenagers even though he apparently did go out on dates with at least two women in their late teens. However, there is nothing illegal about this as the age of consent in Alabama was sixteen. Moore says that he never went out with a young woman without her parent’s approval. Moore has been criticized for going to high school basketball games but it’s important to remember that he had four younger brothers and sisters as well as other younger relatives. Furthermore, except for Corfman and Nelson, neither of whom mention the mall, no women have accused Moore of sexual impropriety. If he was hanging out at the mall to prey on teenagers, there would have been accusations.

The rumor that Moore was “banned from the mall” is likely due to him leaving the Gadsden area after his loss in the Democratic Primary for the circuit judge position. In those days, primaries were usually held in August. He says he entered the race in June 1982. He had resigned from his position as deputy district attorney and the campaign had caused most of the local attorneys and judges to turn against him. He decided to take a break. While at West Point, Moore had taken up boxing and had lettered in the sport. He organized a boxing tournament in his company in Vietnam and took on all-comers, and won most of the bouts. He was interested in the Oriental sport, karate and decided to take his remaining funds and travel to Galveston, Texas to study the sport under Ishmael Robles, a champion competitor and instructor. He found work on construction crews to support himself while he spent nine months studying the sport. (He entered competitions after he returned to Alabama and seems to have won many of them.) After working his way through the various belts, he decided to leave Galveston and the country and travel to Australia. He had planned to go there on R&R from Vietnam but because his unit was transferred back to the States as part of President Richard Nixon’s de-escalation of the war, R&R trips to Australia were discontinued. Moore spent a year in Australia traveling around and working, including several months on a “small” 52,000-acre station (ranch) in the Australian Outback. The rancher’s daughter, who was sixteen when Moore lived with the family, says she was “very close” to him nd that he never disrespected her. Local kids who hung out at the mall didn’t see Moore, not because he had been banned, but because he had left the area. In 1985, Moore returned to Alabama and opened his own office with another attorney and friend. Soon after his return, he met his future wife and was married within a year. He was 38, his new wife Kala was 24.

One thing that has disgusted me is how certain “establishment” Republicans jumped all over Judge Moore without even considering that the accusations against him are politically motivated. I used to live in Kentucky and met Mitch McConnell a few times. I used to hold him in high regard, as I did John McCain, but they’re both disappointments, as is Lindsay Graham. McConnell and Graham are both Baptists, as is Judge Moore, but they seem to be Sunday morning Christians rather than true believers. Ted Cruz, who is a hypocrite if there ever was one, also came out against Moore. My other Senator, John Cornyn, withdrew his endorsement of Judge Moore. Personally, I am very upset with these men, all of whom seem to be more concerned with keeping Moore out of the Senate than with giving him the benefit of the doubt in what is obviously a politically motivated action against him. They were eager to throw him to the wolves, but as he’s been doing all his life, Judge Moore is not going down. The most recent poll, of more than 11,000 people, shows him with a 6-point lead over his opponent in spite of the allegations.

There has been a new development in this situation. Since I began this missive, Moore’s Democratic opponent has been running an online ad calling Moore an “abuser” and listing the names of the nine women who have made claims about him. Since the women would have had to approve the use of their names, this ad proves that their claims are political. They have shown themselves as political whores.

I’ve never been so disgusted in my life as I’ve been over the past few days due to the lack of patriotism shown by some 200 players in the National Football League along with coaches, staff and even some owners. Not only does the United States Code make clear that whenever the national anthem is played, everyone present is to stand facing the flag, or the music if no flag is present, at attention with their left hand by their side and their right hand over their heart, (military personnel in uniform are required to exercise the hand salute) the operations manual of the National Football League also makes clear that players are to stand at attention while the anthem is being played. The NFL manual also states that the anthem will be played at all games, and the NFL is supposed to at least consider the national anthem as part of the leagues public persona. Not only are these players demonstrating against the country that allows them to play football and draw exorbitant salaries, they are disobeying the operating rules of their own league.
Playing the national anthem at sporting events has become traditional since World War I when a military band at the 1917 World Series in Chicago broke into the Star Spangled Banner during the seventh inning of the game. At the time, the United States hadn’t adopted a national anthem but sports teams adopted the tradition of playing a patriotic song, usually the Star Spangled Banner, during or before a game. The Star Spangled Banner was officially adopted as the national anthem in 1931. During World War II, sports teams played the anthem prior to all events and the tradition has continued and become institutionalized by professional sports organizations and also by collegiate teams. The purpose is specifically to recognize those who have fought for and often died for this country in all of the many wars since the nation was established in 1776. To refuse to stand for the anthem is to dishonor those who have fought for the country, regardless of the intent.
Not only is kneeling or otherwise demonstrating during the national anthem unpatriotic, the reasons these players give for their actions is based not on fact, but on politics. They claim they refuse to recognize their country because of racial injustice, but they have no evidence of such injustice to point toward. The practice stems from the formation of the ad hoc organization known as Black Lives Matter, which started as a Twitter hashtag sent out by three black California women, all political activists, in protest of the not guilty verdict in the trial of George Zimmerman, who was charged with murder when he shot a black teenager. The irony is that although Zimmerman has a Germanic name and his father is white, his mother is of mixed-race and he is also technically black because he had a black ancestor (his great-grandfather was black.) However, the media and black activists – including the NAACP, which at the time was led by a man whose racial makeup was close to Zimmerman’s – failed to point this out and the perception among blacks was that a black teenager was killed by a white man. In reality, a man of mixed race, technically a black man, shot and killed a black teenager after, as it came out in the trial, the teenager assaulted him and knocked him on the ground then began beating him and shouting “I’m going to kill you.”
The three women who started the “Twitter storm” are not everyday black women, they are actually far left political activists. One is a union organizer and all three are heavily involved in left-wing politics, particularly gay/lesbian activities. At least two – Cullars and Garza – are lesbians and all three may be. They are also anti-police and radical as evidenced by their idolization of Joanne Chesimard, a black New Jersey woman and black radical who was convicted of killing a police officer in 1973. Chesimard, who was involved with the black radical group The Black Liberation Army (she was believed to have been “the mother hen”), escaped from prison and made her way to Cuba, where she has been living as an exile since 1984 Chesimard, who goes by the name Assata Shakur, claims she is “a Twentieth Century escaped slave.” The Black Lives Matter founders, Alicia Garza, Patricia Cullars and Opal Tometti, idolize Chesimard and consider themselves to be part of the Black Liberation movement. In short, they are radicals. All three are essentially Marxist in their beliefs and are openly anti-American. They are also heavily involved in LGBTQ activities.
What the players, coaches, staff and owners who suddenly feel the need to kneel during the anthem either fail to realize or perhaps are conscious of it is that kneeling is an act of submission, in this case submission to left-wing politics and the radical Black Lives Matter movement and, by extension, the Black Liberation movement. By kneeling, they are both showing that they are submitting to radical left-wing politics and expressing contempt for the United States. They are also showing flagrant disregard for their flag, their nation and for those who have served their country. Although NFL commissioner Roger Goodell (who’s salary is far more than that of most CEOs left-wingers love to hate) claims players are unifying, they are actually causing massive division, much of it racial – after all, Black Lives Matter is devoted to race.
For that matter, just what is professional football anyway? Simply put it is exhibition. Although it’s represented as a game, professional football – and all professional sports – is actually an exhibition. Oh sure, they have league standings and play a “super bowl” each year but they are actually putting on exhibitions each time they play for pay. They are entertainers. The NFL, which was a nonprofit until recently, rakes in billions of dollars each year through gate sales and, most prominently, from TV networks and advertisers. The NFL even has its own TV network, which is only available to paid subscribers. As for their tax-exempt status, although the league itself relinquished its tax-exempt status in 2015, the NFL central office maintained theirs. The NFL and other sports entities still receive tax monies from localities and states by coercing the government entities to fund and maintain the facilities in which they play their games.
As for the conduct of players, the NFL operations manual states that they are to respect the national anthem by standing at attention with their helmets held against their left sides and their hands over their hearts while it is being performed. No, this is not found in the NFL rule book, which governs the games, it’s found in the NFL operations manual, the document under which the league itself operates. By kneeling during the playing of the anthem, players are not only disrespecting their country, they are also violating their league official policies. Now, all Americans have the right to protest, which includes acts such as burning the American flag, participating in legally sanctioned gatherings and speaking out but those rights do not extend to public facilities, which many football stadiums are, and to the workplace. Bear in mind that these players are paid employees of their clubs and whenever they’re at a game (exhibition), they’re representing their employers as well as their team and the league. Whenever a player fails to stand for the national anthem, they are sending a message, a message of disrespect for and even hatred for the nation of which they are citizens. If that’s not divisive, I don’t know what is. That football players are seen as heroes by many young people makes their actions even more deplorable. There is also another issue – their actions are racial and they are racist.
In the English language, words have prefixes and suffixes that convey meaning. In regard to race, the word can be modified in a number of ways, including the addition of “ial”, which means “relating to,” ism, which means “state or quality,” – it also means adherence – and “ist,” which means “a person, one who does an action.” (which means that having thoughts does not make one a racist, there has to be an action.) So, by definition, “racial” means “relating to” race, as in Black Lives Matter, “racism” means adherence to a philosophy of race, meaning to focus on race, as BLM and other organizations based on race do, and a “racist” is one who performs actions related to race – as in kneeling during the national anthem or protesting a jury verdict because of racial beliefs, or their actions are based on their racial state. In short, those who are kneeling to “protest racism” are actually racists who are practicing racism by their actions.
The entire fiasco – because that is what it is – is filled with irony. First, we have players pretending to be protesting “racial injustice” in concert with a racist movement, Black Lives Matter. Then there is the irony of Colin Kaepernick, who claimed he was protesting the treatment of blacks and people of color. Kaepernick is of mixed race – his mother was a 19-year old white woman who became pregnant by a black man who left her before the child was born. She gave the baby up for adoption and he was raised by a white family in white society. Ironically, Kaepernick is a professing Christian but he is supporting a movement that is anything but Christian. Black Lives Matter is also anti-semantic and one of its offshoots has branded the nation of Israel as genocidal. Now we have NFL players, some of whom claim to be Christian, protesting in concert with a movement that is as anti-Christian as they come. Another irony is that by protesting, Black Lives Matter and now NFL players are not helping the cause of African-Americans, they are hurting them by causing massive division. Their claims of nonexistent racial inequality are causing racial strife and unless something changes, it is only going to get worse.
Black Lives Matter and the NFL protests claim they are protesting racial injustice but the facts don’t bear out their claims. They claim that blacks are being singled out by police and shot when in fact blacks only account for 28% of those killed by police. Whites account for more than 50% and Hispanics for the remainder. Black politicians also frequently refer to “driving while black” as some kind of evidence that police are quick to stop blacks for traffic violations. In fact, white drivers are also stopped. I am almost 72 years old and have been driving since I was sixteen, a total of almost 56 years. In that time, I have been pulled over by police numerous times. In each case, the officer claimed some kind of justification. In a couple of cases I was driving over the speed limit. In another, I was stopped because the officer didn’t think I was wearing my seat belt and I had out-of-state license plates. I was stopped twice by officers who claimed I “rolled through” stop signs. Granted, in most of those cases the officer’s actions were justified. In the stop sign cases, I don’t think so because I had actually stopped, but the officers said I didn’t’ come to a complete stop – whatever! In neither case was I ticketed – in the first case the officer, an older white woman in Kentucky who stopped me after I had come in late at night from a flight, called my information in to her dispatcher and was told to let me go. In the other, the most recent, I was stopped by a very polite black officer – this was right after the Sandra Bland incident – who was very courteous and let me off with a warning. My point is that drivers are going to be stopped, regardless of race, usually because they have been breaking the law.
With that said, the actions of the NFL, its owners and many of its players are beyond disgusting. An American organization chartered under the codes of several US states – it started out in Ohio then moved to Chicago and is now headquartered in New York City – and of the United States. Until 2015, the league was registered with the IRS as a 501c (6) organization and enjoyed tax-exempt status. As a US corporation, the NFL is bound to obey US laws – and they are bound to obey their own corporate rules as put forth in their company operations manual. Even worse, they have demonstrated their lack of respect for their nation, and particularly for the veterans and dead of the wars that have been fought to keep this country free. The NFL has become un-patriotic and supportive of radical politics.

Amendment I

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

Along with most Americans, I am dismayed but also incensed by the events that occurred in Charlottesville, Virginia a week ago last Saturday. It is sad that a young woman died in an incident that may or may not have been the result of a deliberate act. However, what causes me the most alarm is that there is an attack on the rights of ALL Americans as expressed in the First Amendment, as authored by Virginian James Madison and adopted by the First Congress in 1791.

Regardless of their beliefs, repugnant or not, those who assembled in Charlottesville for a rally at the statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee had every right to be there. They had a permit from the city – even though the city tried every way they could to deny it – a Federal court order and the support of the ACLU. They were opposed by Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe, Charlottesville Mayor Michael Signor and a host of left-wing protestors, including Antifa, Black Lives Matter and leftwing organizations involved with labor unions. Finally, McAuliffe used the excuse of violence to declare a state of emergency then someone ordered the Charlottesville police to declare the rally to be “an unlawful assembly.” Never mind that there was no violence going on in the park at the time, as evidenced by videos made by participants and posted on altight.com. https://altright.com/2017/08/14/charlottesville-the-view-from-lee-park/ In fact, as the video plainly shows, the violence started when the rally organizers and participants were being forced out of the park and encountered a rock-throwing mob. Several were hit on the head by rocks and required medical attention at the aid stations. Protestors even used homemade flamethrowers against those there for the rally. http://www.bostonglobe.com/news/nation/2017/08/12/photos-violence-charlottesville/M6SLPmlA7kAa4WCQIv7GkM/story.html?pic=20

The most disgusting aspect of the events are the attacks on President Donald Trump for his comments. On Saturday afternoon, he addressed the issue and, correctly, condemned the violence from both sides. Leftists and some Republicans immediately went bonkers because he didn’t keep his comments confined solely to the “white supremacists, racists, KKK, etc. and etc.” who had gathered in the park. In the minds of those people, who apparently were depending solely on accounts on cable news, the violence was solely one-sided. However, more detailed video as referenced above and many others, show that those gathered to protest the rally were as violent or more so than those who were there for it. On Monday, President Trump held a news conference in which he condemned “white supremacists, etc. and etc.” and did not mention the left-wing protestors. (At that point, Donald Trump lost my support because he appeared to be announcing an effort to arrest people for their beliefs.) However, the following day in another appearance he made a more detailed statement in which he blamed the protestors as much as those there for the rally for the violence. Needless to say, the left-wing media (Washington Post, New York Times and LA Times, in particular) went ballistic. (When he made that statement, he got back my support.)

There is a big problem in America, and that is that too many like to paint with a very broad brush when they should be using a fine-pointed artist’s brush. To their mind, any white person who doesn’t admit guilt over slavery is a racist and white supremacist. Anyone who ever criticizes a Jew for anything is automatically an anti-Semite and will be branded as one by the Anti-Defamation League and the Southern Poverty Law Centrer (which has very little to do with poverty and is actually an arm of the Democratic Party.) (Note – the anniversary of the lynching of Leo Frank, a Jew who had been convicted of the murder of Mary Phagan, a 13-year old girl who worked in his factory, was August 17. The Jewish Anti-defamation League was formed by defenders of Frank: the second Ku Klux Klan was also formed as a result of the trial.) Yes, there are neo-Nazis involved in right-wing politics but that doesn’t mean everyone who voted for Donald Trump is a neo-Nazi. There are also communists in the Democratic Party, a lot of them. There may still be some people in the Democratic Party who are actually sincere patriots but the majority have left the party. My 86-year old aunt is a classic example. She was a Democrat all her life but no longer because of the Democrats’ position on abortion. (FYI, my great-grandfather was a staunch Democrat and a muckedy-muck in the Klan. My grandmother and my other aunt were Democrats to the day they died. My mother, on the other hand, voted Republican.)

I have looked at as many videos of the events in Charlottesville as I can find and it appears that overall, things were pretty calm. There were some confrontations between rally -goers and protestors who confronted them along their route but once the attendees were in the park, it appears that things had settled down. Allegedly, the vice-mayor of Charlottesville, Wes Bellamy, a black with a history of hate speech, showed up at the park and police gathered around to “protect” him and subsequently declared the rally “an unlawful assembly” and ordered those there for the rally to disperse. Videos taken at the time show there was no violence occurring and that people were waiting peaceably for the rally to begin. Then, as the rally speakers were leaving the park – after the police ordered them out and arrested one speaker, a military veteran who was mouthing off at them, protestors attacked them with mace and concrete-filled plastic bottles – after police had used pepper spray to force the speakers out of the park. Many in the news media are referring to the event as a “riot” but, in fact, there was no rioting at all. The violence was perpetrated against those there for the rally by protestors who came armed with everything from rocks and concrete-filled bottles to improvised flamethrowers and AR-15s. (Yes, Virginia, there were left-wingers there carrying “assault rifles” and wearing communist hammer and sickle belt buckles.)

After the Charlottesville police cleared Lee Park, those there for the rally walked a mile and a half to another park outside the city. However, after they got there, they received word that the National Guard was on the way to the park to arrest them so they began walking to the parking lot for their cars.

Meanwhile, in Charlottesville the streets had been taken over by protestors, some of whom had permits for demonstrations (but were not ordered to disperse even though there was supposed to be “an unlawful assembly” and the governor had declared an emergency.) One group of blacks surrounded a small group of people who had been there for the rally and threw rocks, concrete-filled bottles and taunts at them until the police finally came and escorted the group – who were armed – to their vehicles. Blacks taunted another group of ralliers as they walked down the street to the parking garage where they had left their vehicles. The blacks followed them into the garage and the whites turned around. A brief melee ensued in which one of the blacks was separated from his buddies and assaulted. (The black photographed with an improvised flamethrower, one Corey Long, was one of the blacks in the group. He claimed he used the aerosol spray can after he found it on the ground. He claims he used it because one of the whites had aimed a pistol at him then fired into the ground at his feet. The trouble with his narrative is that no shots were reported fired. He also claimed he and his buddies were attacked while they were peaceable but video shows otherwise.)

The march that led to the incident with the car was captured on video by a number of people, but particularly Taylor Lorenz, a reporter for the political site The Hill. Ms. Lorenz video, which is available on the The Hill Facebook page, shows plainly that the group in the march were Antifa because they were marching under the black Antifa flag, as well as the red flag of a communist workers group and other flags associated with the radical leftist movement, who call themselves “social justice warriors,” or SJW. The group marched down Waters Street shouting out their hateful slogans until they reached the intersection with 4th Street. At that point someone with a microphone addresses the group and tells them that the people in the neighborhood ahead “do not want us here.” The group was milling around and, based on video shot from a drone, turned north on 4th Street. It was at this point that the Dodge Charger driven by James Alex Fields Jr. came into the crowd and struck one of two vehicles that had been blocked at the intersection by the marchers and forced one into the other, which went into the intersection knocking people left and right. One of the marchers, a local Charlottesville-area woman named Heather Heyer, suffered fatal injuries.

“Witnesses” claimed that Fields was “driving at a high rate of speed” when he hit the protestors. However, video of the incident shows otherwise. I measured the distance from the intersection on the Downtown Mall where Field’s car first appears in the video to the intersection using Google Earth and came up with a distance of 265 feet. There is a time lapse of 6 seconds until the car impacts the first protestor, which works out to a speed of 44.11 feet per second, or 30 MPH. Considering that the point where he impacts the crowd is some distance from the intersection, more than two car lengths, his speed would have been under 30 mph. (A distance of 230 feet divided by 6 seconds would be 38.3 feet per second, or 26.1 MPH.) A photographer for the Charlottesville Daily Progress took a photograph the instant before Fields went into the crowd that plainly shows that the brakes were on just prior to the impact with the crowd. While the media, politicians – including Donald Trump – and others are harping that Field’s actions are “an act of terrorism”, the photograph and his relatively low speed may indicate otherwise. We won’t know until he either confesses or is brought to trial. The video also shows that protestors were throwing things at and hitting his car, which may have influenced his actions.

As for the woman, Heather Heyer, who died as a result of her injuries, very little has been revealed about her. All that is really known is that she was a paralegal who worked for a black lawyer, and that she was “an activist” against injustice. Some, including apparently the organizer of the Unite the Right rally, have Tweeted that she was “A fat communist.” That she and her friends were marching with a group of Anti-Fascists may be an indication. There is one thing for certain, had she not been in that march, she wouldn’t have died that day. The governor of Virginia and the media also attribute the deaths of the two State Police officers who died in the crash of the helicopter to the “white supremacists.” What the fuck? I am a retired professional pilot and former instructor with a large flight instruction corporation. The crash occurred for one of three reasons: (1) human error, (2) mechanical failure or (3) it was somehow shot down. However, the State Police have said there was no outside interference so it was one of the first two. It is sad that the two officers lost their lives but to blame their deaths on the rally organizers is way over the top.

No official estimates of crowd size in Charlottesville have been given but the number of 500 for those there for the rally with double that number for those there to protest and some 1,000 police has appeared in the media. There were definitely some among those there for the rally who fall into the category of “neo-Nazi” and “white nationalist” but it’s hard to tell now because their web sites are no longer available for scrutiny. This is particularly true of Richard Spencer, whose views were available on his National Policy Institute site. That site is no longer available although the Alt-Right site is. One group, Vanguard America, who were wearing white shirts and included James Fields, had a site that has been taken down. Another group, the League of the South, is still up. From what I’ve seen of their site, it appears they’re not a white nationalist organization, but rather an organization dedicated to preserving Southern cultural and the impossible dream of forming a separate Southern state.

Antifa is getting little opposition, even though their goals are deplorable. Canadian/American historian Conrad Black outlines Antifa’s goals in this article. Among other things, they want anyone of color by DNA analysis to be given preferred status and they want to reduce the white population of America to 30%. This three-part series gives an excellent description of Antifa. The state of New Jersey recently declared them a terrorist organization. I am convinced that Antifa is a far-worse organization than any of the “white supremacy” or neo-Nazi groups that are being so maligned by the media and politicians. If I had to choose between them, I’d definitely side with the “far-right” groups.

A second prominent Democrat, one Mary Anne(a) Marsh, a consultant and activist, has admitted on national television that the Trump Administration spied on Donald Trump. Marsh appeared on Judge Janine’s program on Fox recently and stated that not only did the Obama Administration began spying on Donald Trump “in the spring of 2015,” it is a well-known fact. Now, just who is supposed to have known this fact is NOT known, but it obviously means it was known within not only the Trump Administration, but also within the Democratic National Committee, the Democratic Party and the Hillary Clinton campaign. Marsh’s comments confirm what former DOD under secretary Evelyn Farkas admitted a month ago, and which Farkas has been trying to say she didn’t say. (Farkas apparently realizes she was confirming an illegal act but Marsh apparently doesn’t realize it.

There are a number of issues in play. For one thing, surveillance of US citizens without authorization by a court is illegal and even if such surveillance is conducted, the information is classified. That means that if it is “well known” as Marsh claims, someone was disclosing classified information to people who had no “need to know.” That in itself is felony. It also indicates that the information was used for political purposes; both Farkas and Marsh were involved with the Clinton campaign. It also means that a lot of Democratic politicians, including Congressman Adam Schiff and Senator Mark Warner, know the surveillance took place – AND THAT IT WAS ILLEGAL! It also implicates a lot of people high up in the Obama Administration, INCLUDING OBAMA HIMSELF! It has already been revealed that the individual who unmasked members of the Trump team, and now it appears, Trump himself, was very high up in “the intelligence community,” and that it was not Director Comey of the FBI. That leaves former Director of Intelligence General James Clapper and former CIA Director John Brennan – and former President Barack Obama himself.

The admission of spying on Donald Trump raises a lot of questions. For example, who else was spied on? President Trump didn’t declare his presidency until June, and Marsh indicated that the spying took place “in the spring.” (Granted, June is partly in the spring.) It’s likely that Obama and the Democrats were so confident that Hillary Clinton was going to win that they’d never be found out, which seems to be what Evelyn Farkas indicated in her fear that the Trump Administration would learn “what we knew and how we knew it.”

Almost a month ago on March 2, former Deputy Secretary of Defense Evelyn Farkas appeared on MSNBC’s Morning Joe program and discussed the intelligence gathering of the Obama White House with host Mika Brzezinski, a well-known journalist and member of the Democratic Party. In the clip, which can be seen in its entirety, Ms. Farkas basically indicted both herself and the Obama Administration for conducting surveillance of President Donald Trump, apparently both when he was a candidate and during the interim between his election and inauguration. Ms. Farkas, who is well-known for her outspoken criticism of Donald Trump and who has written a number of negative articles about him and criticized him on MSNBC, allowed herself to use the pronoun “we” when discussing intelligence on Mr. Trump and how she “encouraged” the Obama Administration to move this intelligence to “the Hill” prior to the inauguration.

The clip remained unnoticed for almost a month, probably because it appeared on MSNBC where it was only seen by people who are largely critical of the president. It finally came to light a few days ago thanks to members of the conservative media who first made it known on the web site Conservative Treehouse on March 28. The unedited clip has since become widely circulated. Of course, Democrats defend Farkas, who claims her comments were “taken out of context.” In fact, her comments are very straight forward and can only be taken as she uttered them. Incidentally, her comments were made TWO DAYS BEFORE President Trump’s widely criticized tweet in which he asserted that President Obama had the Trump Tower “wiretapped.” (The word is in italics in his tweet.)

It turns out that Farkas, who carries the title “doctor,” is a “Russia expert” with a decidedly anti-Russia bent. During her tenure, she argued that the United States should equip the Ukrainian military with “heavy weapons.” She resigned her post in 2015 and then is alleged to have become an advisor to the Hillary Clinton campaign. The daughter of a Hungarian immigrant – which may explain her anti-Russia bias – Farkas wrote a paper condemning presidential candidate George W. Bush and the Republican Party’s policies for a buildup of the military after Bill Clinton had practically destroyed it. Farkas was a Clinton Administration representative on an international organization team in Bosnia in 1996 then served as an election observer in 1997. She is a member of the Center for National Policy, a left-wing organization based in DC that represents itself as a “non-partisan” think tank “dedicated to advancing the economic and national security of the United States. (Secretary of Defense General James Mattis is a representative of their Edmund S. Muskie Distinguished Service Award, as is Senator John McCain.) During the Bush Administration, she was a staff member on the Senate Armed Services Committee.

In her appearance, the basically outlines how the Obama Administration (and evidently the Clinton Campaign) worked feverishly to gather intelligence on candidate, then President-elect Trump, and make it known on “the Hill,” meaning to Democratic members of Congress. By using the pronoun “we,” she implies that she was personally involved in the spreading of classified intelligence information among members of Congress, some of whom may not have been (and most likely weren’t) cleared for classified information. She now claims that her comments were taken out of context and that she didn’t have access to classified information but her comments imply that she did, which means that someone in the Obama Administration was feeding classified intelligence documents to her and the Clinton Administration.

Where will this go? If Democrats have their way, not far. However, Republicans are in charge and they’re not going to let this die. As I’ve been saying, #Obamagate is just beginning.

Our country is in crisis. For the first time in American history, the losing political party in the presidential election is making every possible effort to delegitimize the new president. The effort centers around the two most prominent, at least in their own minds, newspapers in the United States, the New York Times and the Washington Post. Both papers came out vigorously against Donald Trump before the election and now that he’s president, they’re doing everything they can to oppose him. It’s no accident – both papers, particularly the New York Times, have long been propaganda outlets for the Democratic National Committee and the Democratic Party. Neither paper – or any other media outlet – has an inside track on government and the White House but they try to give the impression that they do. They publish “breaking news” based on “information” provided by “sources” who go largely unidentified. Neither paper can be believed but they serve as the basis for most of the national political news published in the United States.

Having a dishonest media is a major part of the problem but there’s also another. Thanks to books and movies, many Americans have a misperception of the abilities of the various “intelligence” agencies of the Federal government. Thanks to James Bond and other such fictional heroes, they think that intelligence agents – spies – know everything about other governments. In fact, “intelligence” is actually speculation. How do I know this? For two reasons – first, I spent twelve years in the military and was briefed by intelligence officers and, second, I have more than a passing interest in history, particularly military history, and know more than a little about the role played by military intelligence over the past century and a half. I know that “intelligence” is actually supposition based on information that has been obtained by a variety of sources and which may or may not be valid.

“Intelligence,” which is actually a misnomer, has been a function of military forces and governments for many centuries, but it has become more refined since the 1930s due to the development of new methods of obtaining the information that constitutes what the military, and now government, refers to by that term. In the United States, Army and Marine Corps general staffs, at levels ranging from their general headquarters down to the battalion level, the Intelligence function is referred to as G-2. The Air Force and Navy refer to the same functions as simply “intelligence.” Their function is to obtain information to provide to commanders to allow them to make command decisions, information that can be anything from enemy troop strengths and positions to secrets. In addition to military information, intelligence includes economic, agricultural and civilian education and morale information, among many things. This information may be collected by simply reading newspapers, but can also include interrogation of prisoners of wars or defectors as well as interception of enemy dispatches. It might also be derived by agents working undercover, or from paid sources inside enemy camps or countries. Since the 1930s, intelligence has also been derived by intercepting communications, including telegraphs, telephones and radio. With the advent of the internet, it also includes digital information obtained by breaking into servers used by the target government or military force. In recent years, there has been much talk of “cyberwar,” which is nothing more than interfering with internet communications in some way. However, there is a difference between electronic eavesdropping and hacking into a server in order to disrupt communications. Eavesdropping is passive while hacking is aggressive.

Prior to 1947, intelligence in the United States was primarily a military function. It still is to a large extent, with the various intelligence “agencies” depending to a large extent on the military for it’s intelligence-gathering functions. For example, the National Security Agency (which was often referred to as “No Such Agency” in the 50s and 60s), depends heavily on the Air Force, Army and Navy for its intelligence collection. All three services have special units whose role is monitoring of communications of foreign governments and military forces by recording transmissions. All told, there are now six or seventeen intelligence-gathering agencies in the United States government and all but four are either part of or directly involved with the military, and with good reason because it is the military – and the military’s commander-in-chief, the president – who are in most need of intelligence. It is important to understand that every single one of the sixteen or seventeen intelligence agencies are all part of the Executive Branch of government and, as such, are ultimately responsible to the President of the United States.

“Raw intelligence” is meaningless because it can be interpreted in various ways, and may or may not be valid. Therefore, intelligence has to be analyzed and interpreted and turned into a report, which is then passed to the commander who needs it. A failure to properly interpret intelligence can change the course of history, and can lose battles and wars, as happened in the European Theater of Operations in World War II when General Dwight Eisenhower’s vast intelligence staff failed to detect the massive buildup of German troops in the Ardennes in preparation for their attack on inexperienced American divisions that became the famous Battle of the Bulge. Fortunately, the German attack stalled when their vehicles ran out of fuel and the surrounded 101st Airborne Division was kept in the fight by aerial resupply. Even more important, General George Patton’s own G-2 had correctly predicted the attack and his Third Army was able to break away and rush to the aide of the beleaguered paratroopers.

The claim that “the Russians” were behind the hacking of the Democratic National Committee Emails was made immediately after WikiLeaks released the Emails by Robby Smook of the Hillary Clinton Campaign, which is a good indication that the claim was a fabrication designed to lessen the effect of the revelations. The allegation is based on claims by a computer security firm called CROWDSTRIKE the DNC had contracted to monitor it’s network. However, when the FBI looked into the claim, it was not allowed to look at the DNC’s computers but instead relied solely on information provided by CROWDSTRIKE, a company founded by a Russian émigré named Dmitri Alperovitch who came to the United States as a teenager when his father took a job with the Tennessee Valley Authority, after emigrating to Canada on a visa. Alperovitch has a connection to Hillary Clinton dating back to when she was Secretary of State.

In January, the Obama Administration released an “intelligence assessment” of Russian hacking efforts. However, the “report” really doesn’t say anything and offers nothing other than supposition. The report was made public largely thanks to the outgoing director of the CIA, James Brennan, who has strong leftist beliefs and admittedly once voted for the Communist Party, USA candidate for president because he “didn’t agree” with the other two parties. Although Director Comey of the FBI strongly agreed with the analysis, Admiral Mike Rogers of the NSA was less in agreement and only expressed moderate agreement. In fact, all that has been heard about the claim are allegations, with one of the most recent coming from a former NSA director who retired before Donald Trump announced his candidacy for president.

A new twist came about back on March 2 when former Deputy Secretary of Defense Evelyn Farkas made a startling admission that she had encouraged the Obama Administration to leak classified information to “the Hill.” Farkas made her statement on March 2, two days before President Trump tweeted that Barack Obama had Trump Tower “wiretapped” but the media failed to pick up on it. Her comments came to light thanks to conservative bloggers who had seen the segment. Farkas, who served as an advisor to the Hillary Clinton campaign, is now downplaying the significance of her comments, claiming that she did not have access to classified information even though her words plainly indicate that she did. Farkas, who is alleged to be an “expert” on Russia, was not in intelligence and only had access to reports, not to the actual intelligence on which they were based. In fact, Farkas shot her mouth off about Donald Trump’s alleged “ties” to Russia all through the campaign and is often quoted by leftist journalists in articles on the subject. She was a member of the Trump administration and has no credibility as an impartial observer (nor does Brennan.) It is no wonder that many conservative journalists such as Tucker Carlson and Britt Hume believe that Democrats invented the story because they still can’t understand how Trump won the election.

Last week the House Intelligence Committee had a “hearing” with FBI Director Comey and NSA Director Admiral Mike Rogers and this week the Senate Intelligence Committee got in the act. I watched the House hearing in its entirety but have no intention of watching the Senate hearing after seeing Virginia Senator Mark Warner claim that Russian intelligence “paid 1,000 hackers” to put out “fake news” against Hillary Clinton just before the election. Now, where did the 1,000 number come from? In fact, it was the Clinton campaign that was using paid trolls to post anti-Trump and pro-Clinton screeds in comment sections on news sites. Warner, whose entire adult life has been spent in Democratic Party politics, is coming out to be just as much of a snake oil salesman as Congressman Adam Schiff. The reality is that there is plenty of information available about the Clintons, so much that there’s no need for “fake news” about them.

There is one thing that needs to be addressed, and that is that even if there is “intelligence” that members of the Trump campaign and even the administration have “ties” to Russia, this is not reason for concern. The Soviet Union collapsed in 1991 and since then Americans have been doing business in Russia. Paul Manafort, for example, is a political consultant who did work, not in Russia, but in Ukraine. Former EXXON CEO Rex Tillerson was head of a large corporation that has been engaged in oil exploration in Russia since the 1990s. Donald Trump held the 2013 Miss Universe Contest in Moscow. Those are all legitimate business interests and they are but three of literally tens of thousands of Americans who have done business with or in Russia over the past three decades. Some, in fact, were associated with the Clinton campaign. For that matter, former President Bill Clinton gave a speech in Moscow. He also accepted a $500,000 payment from a Russian bank and his wife approved the sale of an American uranium company to Russia.

It’s all a farce and the American people are once again getting the shaft by the Democratic Party.